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Sunday, September 13, 2015

GIRL ME!ME!ME! Sequel/Prequel Review: From a Girl's Perspective

Okay, so I just recently saw the music video of "GIRL", from Studio Khara, Japan Animator Expo, Hideya Kojima x DAOKO, the same guys and gals who brought you "ME!ME!ME!". It's kind of connected to the original video, but essentially different because it's the "girl" version of the said video. Here's my analysis of the said music video.

The Illusion

The girl, Meme, is the blue-green haired girl from the previous video. While some people say this is a sequel or a prequel, I think it would fit more as an alternate version of the first video. Meme lives in her own fantasy world in this video, thinking about castles, ponies and flowers and stuff. Some reviews I've seen attribute it to female masturbation (side note: there's less porn in this one, just fanservice, because it's a "girl" version, girls don't openly display porn affinity compared to guys), which is pretty much given in the sequence (the alternate pony-tailed version of Meme in the first and later parts). It's also a literal depiction of what girls normally dream and are taught by society - to be all pink and love sunshine and rainbows, and that every girl is a Cinderella with a prince charming for them.

The Reality

However, Meme snaps out of this illusion, realizing she's all alone after all, then submerges herself into the sea of reality, the "mainstream" as I call it, turning her into that sexy pony-tailed version in an attempt to "adultify" herself to meet reality's standards. She realizes that reality is bullshit and that everyone is heartless and boring, so she uses her magic wand to turn everyone into pretty (weird) flowers. I'd like to see it as a way of "altering" her reality, and I can see myself in her because I, too, am altering my reality by going into freelance, being an indie musician, drawing, developing small games, writing stories, etc., in short, being creative.

The Rejection

The last part is pretty much of a shocker, even more than the first video. The style is more of a jumpscare-ish approach in this video while in the last one, it was pretty much slowly revealed. In the universe of this video, Hana (pink-haired girl) and Shu from the first video are shown to be together and Meme snaps into a fit of rage, presumably due to jealousy or rejection that she will never have anyone and she'll always be alone. I know it's because Meme is sort of a fictional, virtual girl, but that's not the only case for me.

The Conclusion

Nearly everything in this music video reflects my life, to be honest. I started life thinking I was some Disney princess, or more importantly, a Cinderella person like Yaya Dub, with a destined prince charming for me. In my life, like I said above, I also tried to escape from my boring and hurtful reality by being an indie multimedia artist, trying to literally create my own world inside my head to escape, getting into fandoms most of the time or creating worlds and stories (that almost never get appreciated ). Then later on, some really fucked up things happened, just like I predicted and imagined it would be - I realized I'm not Cinderella or Snow White, but half the Little Match Girl who wants to slowly disappear in the snow due to extreme sorrow and half Maleficent who wants to take revenge for those who did me wrong, betrayed me, abused me, and talked shit about me. I wonder sometimes if I'm also only a virtual girl like Meme or Lain Iwakura.

Sometimes, you realize you become the villain when you grow up, and I think that this "sequel" is more of a "prequel" in a sense that Meme probably sought revenge by captivating Shu into losing Hana and get him stuck in the world of pornographic fantasies. But I still think it's more of a "girl" version of the video, asking the question: "If porn fantasy is what causes a man to break down, what causes a woman to break down?" The answer is rejection and social standards. Meme gave up her childish image just to be accepted, rendering her own emotions aside (with a poker face all the time), except in the last part when she's had enough being controlled by reality. I mean, c'mon, Hana felt it too, from the first video.

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Anyway, I really have a lot to say about this, but I don't want it to be tl;dr so I'm leaving it here. Thanks for reading this far!

(Side note: I might or might not make an AMV of this because you know how YouTube fucks up every animator expo shit, but I might draw fanart though)